

A Night in the Life of Rob Gronkowski

What it's really like to party with the Patriots' fun-loving tight end, as told in an excerpt from his new memoir, It's Good to Be Gronk.
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Rob "Gronk" Gronkowksi is one of the best tight ends the NFL's ever seen. But his legendary career with the New England Patriots only tells part of the story. Known around the University of Arizona for hosting parties with slip-and-slides, hot tubs, and stripping, Gronk wasn't just a star college athlete but the life of the party. Here, in an excerpt from his book, It's Good to Be Gronk (Gallery/Jeter Publishing), out today, the Super Bowl winner takes fans inside Club G, where college got a little bit crazy. — Esquire Editors

"We Party Harder Than Anybody"

Okay, here's the deal: football season was over, it had its ups and downs, but I had busted my butt and now it was time to move forward. That meant it was time to train for next season and party for tonight. The good thing about the way me and my brothers party is that we don't sit on our butts or just stand around with drinks in our hands. We go hard! We don't do drugs; we don't need to. We have so much energy and are so fired up just to party among ourselves that whether there is alcohol or not, we jump at the chance to get wild and start dancing to the extreme, laughing, making jokes, doing stupid things, and having so much fun it is infectious to everyone around us. Because when we get started, we party harder than anybody. We are dancing high-energy, constant moves, jumping, gyrations—it is the best cardio workout ever. So actually, even when I am partying, I am working out.

I don't care who you are, where you go, and what you do: no one can party like Gord. This guy loves to go out, hang out, drink a few drinks, dance crazy with the ladies, and have fun like no one else. Now, at the time I'm talking about, since Gord was playing professional baseball in the minors, he had money, while the rest of us were on a strict budget. Gord always had that extra hundred bucks to buy kegs and do fun things. With Gord there, every night that spring and summer was a party, and I mean every night.

"With Gord there, every night that spring and summer was a party, and I mean every night."

At our house, the front door and back door were perfectly aligned to form a straight line right through the living room, kitchen, and hallway. The hallway was a tiled floor. So what Gord would do to get the party started was create a hundred-foot-long slip-and-slide. We would invite all the hot athletic and sorority girls over, then take dishwashing liquid and squirt it all over the floor to make it slippery. We would then squirt it all over ourselves to get lubed up and then throw water all over the place. The name of the game was to make it from door to door sliding on your chest, and the only way to make it was to get a fast head start.

The hallway was wide enough to make it through without crashing into the wall, and since we were all in great shape, it didn't really hurt. Having alcohol in our systems made it even more fun. And the girls loved coming over to do it. The rules were the guys had to strip down to their underwear and the girls had to strip down to their panties and bras. They knew that if they were coming over to our place, they were going to slip and slide.

The ladies loved doing the slide but couldn't go headfirst. They had to slide feet first on their back- sides because otherwise their chests caused too much resistance and slowed them down. Whichever way you did it, something was always coming off. Somebody was always naked and the girls loved it when our underwear slid off. We had those slip-and-slides all the time at Club G. That's what we called our house.

Whichever way you did it, something was always coming off.

To make Club G even more fun, we were always incorporating drinking games with the slip-and-slide. We formed tag teams where a girl and guy would be on each team and the object of the game was to slide from the back door to the table, chug a quart of beer, flip the cup (like the game flip cup), and then slide back and tag your partner; then your partner would do the same. Whichever team made it back to the door first, won. We called it flip-and-slip.

This one time, and for some reason no one can remember, Gord switched his underwear with a girl and wore her thong to do the competition. Gord went first and finished, racing through the front door to win. He was super excited about winning, until he stood up and saw a police officer standing right there. Gord just stood there in the girl's thong and said, "Oh, uh . . . hi, Officer. Is there a problem?"

I don't know how the officer kept a straight face, but he did and said there had been a noise complaint. Gord asked if he could go in the front door to put his pants on, but since he had had one too many drinks, he grabbed the girl's jeans instead of his. He got the pants halfway up his legs until he realized they were hers and not his, and then fell over laughing. Years later, in my second year as a New England Patriot, I did a Christmas show on TV called Shopping with Gronk. I went shopping for the family, and for Gord I bought a thong at Victoria's Secret. Now you know why.

"Every party night you could find me cooking scrambled eggs totally naked at 2 or 3 a.m."

There was always a party going on at our place. Our deal was we had to have what we called a pregame party, where we had a few girls come over and start the drinking, dancing, and just getting wild. Then we would go to wherever the happening party was, and when that was over we would come back to our place for the after party. I was always hungry by the time we came back for the after party, so for whatever reason, one I really can't explain, every party night you could find me cooking scrambled eggs totally naked at 2 or 3 a.m. I made them for the whole crew as the designated egg maker.

Well, it wasn't literally every night, since my parents would visit from time to time and when that happened, we toned things down somewhat. When my dad, aka Big G or Papa Gronk, first visited us, he walked in the door and saw a girl sliding completely naked down the hallway. Big G looked at Gord and knew he had miscalculated in sending Gord there to keep us out of trouble. As hard as we tried, we never got my dad to do the slip-and-slide, but he had fun watching everyone else do it.

When my mom visited she wasn't a happy camper at all. Club G was furnished with a hot tub in the front yard, under a tree. The price of admission for the ladies to get into Club G's hot tub was to throw their bra or bikini top into the tree. When my mom visited, she saw all the bras in the tree and was pissed. When we were kids, she used to threaten us or hit us with a hard, big plastic spoon to do her best to stop us from doing whatever we were doing. I could swear she instinctively reached for that spoon when she saw the tree. If she had had it, she would have come after us.


It was great having the hot sorority girls party with us at Club G, but it pissed off the frat guys who were supposed to be getting with them. Fraternities and football players don't get along; that's just the way it is on college campuses. I had made a mistake as a freshman in going by myself to one particular frat party. Some frat guy's girl was getting overly friendly with me and the guy didn't like it. I didn't know it at the time, but these guys had it out for me. After having a few drinks, I went to the bathroom to take a leak. When I came out, no less than eight guys jumped me and hit me with whatever they could get their hands on.

Chris and Justin weren't there, I was by myself in enemy territory and that was a big problem. My first thought, other than wondering what hit me, was that I didn't want to get into trouble with my coach and get suspended. My second thought was to get the hell out of there. I instinctively punched, kicked, and threw four of the guys out of my way, but a bunch more guys jumped on me. Guys were coming at me from behind and from all angles; it was a battle to get out of there. Eventually eight of them got me to the ground and I was taking kicks everywhere, but our quarterback, Willie Tuitama, was there, and when he saw what was going on, he helped get me out of there. The girl I had been friendly with told me that I looked like the Hulk throwing four dudes off me.

She loved it and definitely made it up to me later. So other than a slight black eye, I didn't really get hurt, but still I never made that mistake again of being solo in enemy territory.

When I told Chris, Gord, and Justin what happened, they went nuts. The whole team found out right away and went down there to beat the hell out of each and every one of those frat guys. When we got there, Chris and Gord were screaming at them to come and fight. They wouldn't come out; they were scared to death. We made sure not to step on their property so they couldn't get us in trouble with the cops, but they called the cops on us anyway and we had to get out of there.

"When my mom visited she wasn't a happy camper at all."

That wasn't the end of it with the frat houses. Another frat had a big party a few weeks later and we knew better than to go into their house. There were fifty guys there. So, not looking for trouble, we stayed in the street and didn't go on their property. It was a big party so there were girls in the front yard, inside the house, in the backyard; they were everywhere and there were plenty for everyone. My roommate Justin Salum and one of our teammates were out front with me as well.

Ten frat guys started talking trash to our teammate. He wasn't looking for trouble and laughed it off, keeping things cool, but the biggest frat guy there, some 6´5˝ dude, threw a full beer can and hit our teammate in the head. Grabbing his head, he stayed on his feet but staggered back and was momentarily dazed. Justin saw who did it and charged the frat guy, grabbing him by the throat. The frat guy punched Justin in his left eye and then all hell broke loose. Justin threw a right hook and decked the guy.

The crowd started yelling, "Fight! Fight!" and no less than twenty frat guys came running out of the house. It was thirty of those frat guys versus ten of us, but we hated them and didn't hold back. This was an all-out rumble in the middle of the street. I had seen the movie The Outsiders with Matt Dillon, which had an awesome rumble scene, but this was even better. There was blood flying, bodies getting slammed, alcohol spilling, and women screaming everywhere.

All I know is Chris and I saw Justin deck that guy and we knew there was only one way out of there and that was to fight our way out. We were surrounded and getting jumped. With Chris right next to me, we were punching, kicking, tackling, throwing, and just messing dudes up! It was the wildest fight ever. Chris and I got into Hulk mode and smashed guys! Our other roommate, Orlando Vargas, was a big football player, too, and he was a force to be reckoned with out there. Orlando was a monster!

While I was body-slamming a guy into the side of a car, another frat guy knocked me into the car, and I banged my elbow pretty hard, but other than that, the worst injury we had was Justin's black eye. The other frat houses hated that frat, so those frat boys were cheering us on as we were beating the other ones' butts. The cops got there but we got home, our shirts bloodied, and didn't get into trouble. That was the last fight I've gotten into, but it ranks as the all-time best.

It's Good to Be Gronk (Gallery/Jeter Publishing) is out today.

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